I have a Comp. Sci background but worked mostly as a sysadmin (bash, voip, firewalls and whatnot) on low level back end stuff...
I'm currently not hands deep into code either, but I'd love to be able to understand and catch up on a full stack, mostly the web part, for which I didn't invest much time till now!
So anything web server and above feel strangely like another world even though I've always been around them and can configure a web server without any problem, I just never dealt with the whole session management, programming etc in that context.
I've also done some projects in javascript, though without frameworks up till now.
Node.js sounds fun but my understanding was that it's not quite ready as a CMS, like Drupal?
I might actually just start with Node though as I can stick to 1 language and concentrate on small real time projects.
I've had a bad feeling about rails many years ago that might also explain a few things... ;-)
Cheers.
Drupal and node.js are not really directly comparable.
Drupal is really just a (complicated) CMS. Starting with version 7 it is now flexible enough to be a framework, but it is S-L-O-W. Every sizable Drupal site depends heavily on caching to maintain acceptable performance. I don't know of anyone but Drupal shops (like Phase 2 or Acquia) who have built actual software products on top of Drupal.
Drupal is developed in PHP, but its codebase is well behind modern programming practices. The community is only just now introducing object-oriented architecture in Drupal 8, which is still in alpha development. So: if you learn Drupal, you will not have easily transferable skills. But the demand for Drupal devs is growing fast, at least on the east coast, so you could have a very rewarding career.
Node.js is a lower-level framework. You could use it build a CMS (and some people have [1]), but you could also use it to build a lot of other things, with a good chance that it will be performant. And since it's based entirely on javascript, and is seen as "hot" and up-and-coming, there may be broader opportunities for you there as a programmer.
Node might make more sense in your case. It's almost too easy to throw something together in drupal. You never actually need to touch PHP or JS. From my (admittedly shallow) exposure to node, it seems to be a healthy mixture of minimal boilerplate and actually writing some code ever. You'll get the experience of doing for yourself rather and than buying into a preconfigured, but ultimately limiting ecosystem.
I'm currently not hands deep into code either, but I'd love to be able to understand and catch up on a full stack, mostly the web part, for which I didn't invest much time till now! So anything web server and above feel strangely like another world even though I've always been around them and can configure a web server without any problem, I just never dealt with the whole session management, programming etc in that context.
I've also done some projects in javascript, though without frameworks up till now.
Node.js sounds fun but my understanding was that it's not quite ready as a CMS, like Drupal? I might actually just start with Node though as I can stick to 1 language and concentrate on small real time projects. I've had a bad feeling about rails many years ago that might also explain a few things... ;-) Cheers.